VI

HE was nearing sixty now, an undoubted European figure.
In party politics he held a position that was a shade detached.
Denied the inner sacraments of the Whig communion by Ms
Tory origins, of which opponents in debate and writers of
squibs did not fail to give him frequent and forcible reminders,
he was even inclined to emphasise these imperfections.
The strongly national flavour of his foreign policy tended to
make him friends among the Tories rather than in his own
party. Those more enlightened circles customarily abound in
citizens of the world and friends of the human race* For
progressive persons have an odd weakness for the enemies
of their country; and twenty years of Opposition in the
Great War had left a strange affection for the French
implanted in Whig bosoms. But Palmerston was sadly
immune from those generous emotions, and Whig heads
shook nightly at Brooks's over his obduracy, so different
from the canonical orthodoxy of John Russell. In Cabinet
circles this divergence of doctrine was accentuated by his
firm treatment of refractory colleagues. For the fait
accompli was his favourite argument, tending to make
unwilling captives rather than loyal adherents. But, foreign
affairs apart, a further difference shadowed his somewhat
precarious collaboration with John Russell. For that eager
zealot was a fervid Churchman, prepared at any opportunity
to challenge Rome with Protestant gusto. His slightly
narrow affections were shared by Reform and the Reforma-
tion, while Palmerston had shown a dangerous breadth of
view in sectarian matters. His early opinions on the
Catholic question and his tenants' schools in Sligo pointed
a different way; the Canningite had lost a University seat for
his Catholic sympathies in 1831, and it was still feared that

206